Norway's Magnus Carlsen will seek today to take the solo top spot in the Tata Steel chess tournament, when he faces Azerbaijan's Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the ninth round.

Havana, January 25 (RHC)-- Norway's Magnus Carlsen will seek today to take the solo top spot in the Tata Steel chess tournament, when he faces Azerbaijan's Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the ninth round.

Carlsen, reigning world champion, accumulates 5.5 points, the same number as Mamedyarov, but is ahead of his opponent on Tuesday by the tiebreaker system.

The Norwegian will lead the white pieces in the most interesting game of the day.

The Dutch player Anish Giri, in third place, half a unit behind the leaders, will also be in the clear against the American Sam Shankland, seventh in the rankings.

Another of the candidates for the title, the Indian Santosh Gujrathi Vidit, who has five points, will play against the Hungarian Richard Rapport, fifth, one point behind the leaders.

Sixth-placed Andrey Esipenko of Russia will have board to board with tenth-placed Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland.

In today's remaining matches, the Dutch Jorden Van Foreest will play against the Russian Daniil Dubov, the American Fabiano Caruana against the Swedish Nils Grandelius and the Indian Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu against the Russian Sergey Karjakin.

The 84th edition of the traditional XX category event of the International Chess Federation gathers 14 of the best players of the world in its Masters group and will last until next Sunday when 13 rounds will be played.